Reflection on Life-Calling Is Focus of Alumni Retreats
Dr. Chris Johnson
The notion of vocation or calling is at the heart of the work of the Center for Servant Leadership, and – voiced by Robert Greenleaf as “the desire to serve first, then lead” in ways that empower others – it grounds the idea and practice of servant leadership. Vocation, like servant leadership, offers a life-giving alternative to conventional ways of being.
Picture it this way: “Normal life” in our society, according to columnist Ellen Goodman, is “getting dressed in clothes you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you’re still paying for, in order to get to the job you need so you can pay for the clothes, the car, and the house you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.” According to this societal “script,” life is about going through motions, trying to stay on a treadmill that’s moving continually faster, grasping for control and gasping for breath. But for the sake of what, and at what cost? We are conditioned to live by a cultural story that emphasizes materialism, individualism, speed, fear and distraction, all of which too often results in burnout and meltdown – of self, relationships, communities, and the planet.
But of course that’s not the only Story we might live by. An alternative can be summarized by the word “vocation,” which simply means calling, invitation, or summons. One of the ways we have spoken of vocation at Gustavus since the 2001 launch of the CSL’s predecessor, the Center for Vocational Reflection, is as a calling to live out your distinctive gifts, passions, and senses of faith and meaning in ways that benefit the community and help to address the world’s deep needs. It is the shape that your daily life takes in answer to the Big Questions of identity, purpose, and meaning – questions such as, “Who am I, and why am I here? What’s my place in the world, and how can my life make a difference? What do I really care about, and what does my life really stand for?” To think of your life in terms of vocation is also to tell – to live out – a certain kind of story of your life and of the way things are and ought to be. Since it has to do with your identity and place in the world, it ultimately grows out of and expresses key senses of the self and of what it is to be a human being.
Thus, we also speak of vocation as an overarching self-understanding that sees the self as:
- “Gifted,” both in terms of discerning and nourishing your gifts, talents, skills, competencies, strengths, interests, and passions, and in terms of knowing that your very life is a gift to be cherished and shared with others. It grows out of and expresses a capacity to live your life with a “posture” of awe and gratitude (theologically, a posture of grateful response to grace), rather than one of entitlement, or fear, or cynicism.
- “Free”: that is, free from, for example, the pressure to conform to social norms and practices that are damaging to your spirit or destructive of community, or from the need to earn God’s favor through “good works,” or from prejudice and narrow-mindedness – and free for a life of meaning, passion, and purpose in service to the neighbor, free for a hope-filled life of courageous willingness to take risks for others and to stand up for justice.
- “Nested” within realities and relationships that are greater than yourself: community, for example, or a “cause” that evokes care and action, God, or a hopeful future. Vocation expresses a sense of the self not primarily as an isolated, independent, individualistic unit but rather as fundamentally relational, interdependent, and interconnected with one another and with Creation.
- Having “agency” and “efficacy,” that is, as someone whose decisions and actions are meaningfully your own (e.g., at least partly within your control and subject to rational deliberation) and do in fact matter in the lives of others. Vocation expresses a belief that you have a role in the working out of the meaning of things, a conviction that your life really does make a difference to those around you and to the world. [Note: This formulation of a distinctively (but not exclusively) Lutheran understanding of vocation is thanks to my Gustavus colleague Dr. Darrell Jodock, the Drell and Adeline Bernhardson Distinguished Professor of Lutheran Studies.]
To have a sense of vocation is to see the self through the lenses of a certain kind of story of what it means to be human, a certain kind of story about the way things are and ought to be. Vocation is about who you most truly are, in and for the world. The “characteristics” of a servant-leader – capacities like listening, persuasion, and so on – are manifestations of your core self; they are expressions of your calling to live out who you are in ways that can help others to be more who they are.
Each of us, furthermore, is connected with others and with realities that are larger than ourselves. The countless particularities of daily life call each of us to live, work, and lead in ways that benefit the community and contribute to the common good. Like the elastic cord that holds in tension the various segments of a tent pole, a sense of vocation acts as the thread of meaning, purpose, and identity that forms the framework of a whole life-story within which you can dwell. A vocational “story of self” (to borrow a phrase from Marshall Ganz) grounds and sustains a life of joyful integrity aimed at the wellbeing of others, which the culture’s story threatens to tear apart.
Grounded on this foundational idea of vocation – as having to do with ways of understanding the self-in-community – the CSL invites consideration of new ways of imagining what it is to live the human story. The CSL has begun to offer alumni retreats, therefore, as a way to serve people in all walks of life and across the lifespan who yearn for more than “normal.” “I see alumni continuing to search for meaning and vocation, long after they graduate from Gustavus,” said Assistant Professor of Economics and Management Kathi Tunheim. “As alumni progress through the seasons of their lives, they need and want time and space for reflection. With the CSL we can invite alumni to come back and learn even more about meaning and vocation, at whatever stage they are in their lives.”
In that spirit, I co-facilitated (with Lauren Fulner, ’09) a vocational reflection retreat for recent alumni in February 2012, around the theme “Soul Sustenance for Young Changemakers.” On behalf of the CSL, I also piloted two other retreats for alumni during the CSL’s first full year: a weekend retreat for alumni around the theme “Seeds, Seasons, and the Undivided Life” in October 2011, and “Explore Your Life’s Calling” in November. The latter was the first offering in a new collaborative endeavor among several ELCA-related colleges and universities, called “Vocation for Life,” which invites alumni of all those institutions to reflect together on questions of vocation across the lifespan.
Each retreat utilized the Circles of Trust approach developed by educator and author Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage and Renewal; I happen to be a member of the national network of Courage and Renewal facilitators. Those retreats (and the many others I lead or help to design each year for students, faculty, and staff) are invitations for participants to step with intention into a place apart, to pause from the frenetic pace of their regular days, and to explore in fresh ways the Big Questions of their lives – questions of identity, meaning, purpose, and calling.
The alumni retreats are designed to nourish the deep connection between “soul and role” and to renew participants’ capacity to live, work, and lead from a place of wholeness and authenticity. Participants in each retreat experienced the rare gifts of renewal, deep listening, and safe, courageous space to consider things that really matter. They noted that since the vocational journey continually evolves with the twists and turns of life, it is crucial that they invested in the opportunity to re-connect what they do with who they are.
Alumni and guests who took part in these retreats expressed appreciation for:
- “the time, space and permission to attend to questions that matter, to be held in a circle of people who were present enough to care for the depths, pains and joys of my soul”
- “the experience of community as we learned from one another”
- “the sense that my value lies not in doing but in being the person God and my community call me to be”
- “a wonderful experience that has strengthened me for the journey ahead”
- “the openness and honesty I felt in this space – the diversity of the group, and the sense of community and respect”
- “the chance to intentionally continue exploring my vocation, and to ask: Where am I going from here? Which crossroads?”
- “the knowledge that my life will be and is changing and I will be OK. I’m going from fear to excitement and more confidence that I will be OK.”
- “the reminder to wait, listen to the voice within, and notice what’s around me.”
At the heart of the College’s mission is a commitment to develop the whole person – mind, body, and spirit – for lives of leadership and service; Gustavus created the Center for Servant Leadership because it is central to who we are and what we do. Like the CSL itself, these alumni retreats offer a creative, safe, and welcoming space for people to reflect on the big questions in their lives – questions of truth, identity, meaning, faith, values, ethics, and the common good.
After all, the college years – and one’s whole life, for that matter – aren’t about just going through the motions, faster and faster, scrambling after ‘more.’ They’re about living deeply into a life of meaning, passion, and purpose, a life of courageous integrity and authentic connection, a life that makes a positive difference for those around you and for the communities and the planet we share.
Additional retreats sponsored by Gustavus and by the Vocation for Life collaboration are being envisioned for later in 2012 and 2013 in diverse locations, including the Gustavus campus; the Twin Cities; Rochester and Moorhead, Minnesota; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; the Chicago area; Carefree, Arizona; and the west coast. Announcements and details will be posted as they become available on the CSL website: www.gustavus.edu/servantleadership.
About the Author
DR. CHRIS JOHNSON is Director for Vocation and Integrative Learning and Associate Director of the Center for Servant Leadership at Gustavus Adolphus College, in Saint Peter, Minnesota, where he also teaches courses with the Religion Department. A 1985 graduate of Gustavus and the College’s first recipient of the prestigious Truman Scholarship, Chris went on for his MA from Luther Northwestern Seminary and his Ph.D. in theology, ethics and culture from the University of Iowa. He served as assistant professor of religion and director of service-learning at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, prior to returning to Gustavus to launch the Center for Vocational Reflection, predecessor to the CSL, in 2001. Chris has more than 15 years of experience in speaking, writing, leading workshops, and facilitating retreats in higher education, faith-based organizations, and the business and not-for-profit communities. His association with state, regional, and national endeavors includes the Center for Courage and Renewal and InCommons (a new initiative of the Bush Foundation and other regional partners). With his wife, Kim, he is co-founder of Prairie Oaks Institute, a nonprofit education, retreat, and sustainable-living center dedicated to nourishing expansive imagination, bold thinking, wise action, and cross-sector solutions to the unprecedented environmental and social challenges of our time. Originally from a dairy farm-family of six kids near Litchfield, Minnesota, Chris now lives in Saint Peter with Kim and their three children: 18-year-old son, Amos, and 13-year-old twins Josiah and Mara.